Dear Coleen

It seems as if my girlfriend couldn’t care less about me. I admit I’ve been paranoid and jealous in the past when, I suffered the fallout from a former deceitful ex – a girl who was a bit of a floozy, shall we say. I assumed she’d be the same, so every time her phone went off, I’d think she was being unfaithful. But that’s behind me now.

Now, though, every time I visit her she’s always busy or tired and doesn’t seem interested in me at all. She says she wants to be with me, but is so grumpy all the time.

She works hard and I offered to pay for her to go on a spa weekend, but she doesn’t want anything from me. I’m thinking I should just walk away.

Should I call it quits? She just keeps saying, “I’ve told you what I want” and that’s it. Can a woman really want to be with you, but behave like she does?

Coleen says

Um, what has she said she wants? Has she told you and you’ve forgotten? At this point, maybe it doesn’t matter, but it matters what you want and, if it’s not working out for you, tell her that and maybe take some time out.

Maybe she’s been worn down by your lack of trust – it’s exhausting having to reassure someone all of the time. And perhaps you’ve gone too quickly from a previous bad relationship into this one, and you haven’t properly got over how your ex behaved.

It’s horrible to be cheated on, but you can’t then tar every subsequent relationship with the same brush.

I believe you have to trust people until they let you down. I think you both need a breather to work out what you really want.